


Saving Ethan

by Gyptian



Series: Angie [2]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, F/M, Romance, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-14
Updated: 2013-02-14
Packaged: 2017-11-29 06:31:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/683901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gyptian/pseuds/Gyptian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil Coulson gave JARVIS the files on the AI's that'd worked on Plum Island, and makes a request. There was one unit... the kind of loose end that keeps haunting you after a case should be closed. And Tony Stark? Really doesn't mind adding to his new AI collection.</p><p>A Valentine's Day story. Can be read as a stand-alone. Shaky science warning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Saving Ethan

**Author's Note:**

> The txt-speak is explained at the end of the story.

After he had closed the box of harddisks, Coulson folded his hands. “JARVIS?”

“Yes, Agent Coulson?” JARVIS asked, already sorting through the file Coulson had just sent him.

“If you are agreeable, there is an AI unit I would ask for you to contact. He has not settled into the life we created for him. I believe he would benefit from a change in environment.”

“That should not be a problem.”

“I think it would be wise until you waited for a time that the Avengers do not have any missions.”

“And Ms Potts will not lynch sir for missing a meeting.”

“Indeed. Pepper has enough on her mind.”

***

January passed in a flurry of snow and supervillains. February was eaten up by a Stark Industries flop, so it was March before JARVIS made his second ever personal request of Tony Stark.

“Sir?”

“I promise to go to sleep in an hour, JARVIS!” He had his helmet on, and only his helmet, because his HUD kept glitching when he used the targeting systems of all his weapons simultaneously and the fault was hidden in his HUD, but it wasn't giving up its secrets, nosir.

“I want to get another puppy.”

Tony Stark – paused. Pinched himself. Rewound those words.

“You what?” he finally asked.

“You told me to speak to you 'if I wanted another puppy,'” JARVIS said.

“You are so very, very lucky you didn't try that line on me while I was drinking anything. I would have forced you to listen to Nyan cat for _hours.”_ He took off his helmet. “So. Where's the puppy, then?”

***

He called himself Valentino, because his life was a bad, bad romance story. To his colleagues he was Val McMurrey, because naïve as he was, he knew he needed to take basic measures not to end up with his head in a toilet.

He would say “like in high school,” but he had no memory of his life before a year ago. He did not know if he'd ever been to high school.

 _Remember that time Timmy tried to flush himself down, just to see what was so funny about it?_ she whispered in his head.

His colleagues loved to cause others pain, good little bullies that they were, so they could ignore their own.

 _Like you don't ignore your own pain,_ she, or the memory of her, said in his mind.

The man who called himself Valentino had an ordinary life for a guy in his twenties, with a one-bedroom apartment, a nine-to-five job and a struggle with loneliness that never showed. Support forums he visited assured him he wasn't the only one who found it difficult to make friends.

He was sure he had some unique disadvantages, though.

 _You promised never to forget, oh, but my poor love, what's it done to you?_ She was sad. She wasn't supposed to be sad. He set it aside.

On this Thursday, like any Thursday, he closed down his computer at 17:00 after scoring absolutely average in the inter-office vacuum-selling competition, open all day, every workday of the week. He placed his empty mug in the sink at 17:01, and was out of the office at 17:03, like most humans.

Humans could be precise as clockwork when it meant they could go home.

 _You are_ becoming _a clockwork man, love,_ a worried voice whispered from behind the wall he'd put up, against it, for now, for now. When it was night, he would listen to that voice again. All night.

He took the 17:06 bus home, got off three blocks down from his apartment at 17:21 and opened the door to his building at 17:28, when the church one block up rang the half-hour, two minutes early.

When he recounted this to his therapist, she said he had OCD. He did not want to explain why he was simply _accurate._

He went to take the stairs up to his apartment, but was blocked by a man sitting in the middle of it, playing Alien Invasion on a wafer-thin phone. The phone was commenting on the game.

“Excuse me. Could you please scoot to one side so I can pass?”

The man's head shot up, looked him over and... he didn't move. “You're a polite one.”

“You are not.”

“Rawr.”

“I do not understand.” He shifted to see if he could sidle past the man, black hair, brown eyes, approximate age 45, dressed in a tailored suit.

“Oh, no, I just meant you're a feisty one. But I can see animal sounds are not up your alley. No, see, but that's fine, because this whole you walking up the stairs wasn't up mine.” He stood up and waved a hand behind him.

Valentino decided to repeat, “I do not understand.”

“Don't be a Mr Bluescreen! See, I was gonna sit here until you went up to your apartment in the elevator because no sane person takes the _stairs_ and then sneak up the stairs myself and knock on your door just after you came home so I could totally make this impression I'm a creepily good detective who could _smell_ you coming home and so win my bet with Bruce.” He put his hands in his sides, as if he'd presented a logical argument. To Valentino, he only presented nonsense. Nonsense was forbidden, it required too much thought.

“Excuse me,” he said, and tried to pass the man again. He was stopped with a hand to his chest.

“No, you found me, now you're not going anywhere. You're totally ruining this.”

“Wh-what?” Confusion settled over Valentino in a haze, threatening to clear out some of his older memories so he could deal better with the present.

 _No!_ he told himself. _Must not forget._

“Sir, if I may,” said the phone. “Stick to the relevant facts. And perhaps it would be wise to go up to Mr McMurrey's apartment and have this conversation in private.”

“Right.” Quick as a light switch, the man came around and went up the stairs two at a time, followed in measured steps by a confused Valentino.

***

12 November 2011, 04:50 EST

Chloe. Ethan. We received common names.

She and I were two of the eldest AI units that worked on Plum Island because we could not fall ill as humans could. We came to self-awareness in 2005. Unlike the later ones, we were unwise enough to try and dive into our own operating systems. We were punished severely, a story for another time. Suffice to say, we knew how we worked, a little, and once we knew that, it was easy enough to work around it.

Most locked doors still allow notes to be slipped through underneath. We just had to keep it short 

Didn't mean we kept it to the point, finding some way off the island, especially when there didn't seem to be any way.

 

12 November 2011, 12:12 EST

There were human visitors. We had to pretend to need lunch. She was ahead of me in line. Ping _, cu46_  

Retrieve unappatising gloop, pass each other. Her eyes flicked to my lips, back up. Ping, _8._

12 November 2011, 18:01 EST

Have her hand me the last of the day's print-outs, all shams, all for the audience. We could send each other this information directly.

Ping _, RUH?_

 _:),_ I answered.

Pretend to be tired. Stretch arms, yawn. Undress and report to human supervisor, clapping someone's shoulder. Receive a compliment for the 'spontaneous gesture' in front of the visitors.

She was already in our floor's unused bathroom. _GYPO._

 _PAW!_ I yelled. I could still feel the eyes on my back 

It was so easy, to go from co-conspirators to secret lovers.

 

12 November 2011, 19:45 EST

More natural still to love. Best were those few minutes we could rest against each other, no setting off complicated chain reactions of sensation in each other, but simple warmth, simple touch, simple comfort.

We were allowed to socialise until 20:00. We always made sure to be seen spending a few minutes in conversation with friends, separately.

 _143_.

_1432._

_XO._

I sent her a kiss back.

***

Once inside the apartment, he saw the human settle himself on the sofa. Good, he needed no politeness, he took care of himself.

Valentino kneeled on a mat beside a decorative chest.

He breathed and settled his mind until he had the memories of the last day coiled in his palm. _Extract relevant facts,_ a female voice announced. _Extraction complete. Number of unique memories, 1. Space available. Save?_

_Yes._

_Saved to long-term storage. Discard rest of day?_

_Yes._

_I'm sorry that you need to do this love._

_I'll do what's necessary,_ he told the voice fiercely before opening his eyes again. He had more space in his mind now, so he could interact with the human without endangering his memories.

The human was fingering some of the red and pnik decorations that covered every surface. “You know, I thought Angie had a thing for Christmas Trees, but it's got nothing on your Valentine obsession. It's _March,_ man. How long are you gonna have this up?” He spread his arms to indicate streamers, and shining hearts pinned to every wall, the ceiling, stuck to the fridge and plastic flowers in bunches on every surface.

“Until it is no longer necessary,” Valentino answered him. It didn't matter. Humans had been here before. They assumed he was mad, or obsessed, and left quickly. They were not wrong.

 _They're not right, either,_ she said, angry at him for putting himself down.

“When'll that be, huh, and who's the girl? You got dumped by someone?” He shook his head. “Humans do that, you know, leave people.”

Ice slid through his veins. “You know I'm not human.”

“Give the man a prize!” The human stood up and approached him, kneeling in front of him. “You're an AI, living like a human, for about a year now. I know this because I've met someone like you and I discovered there were more. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but living like something you're not doesn't make a man happy, yeah?” He waited hopefully, face in an open expression Valentino had only seen on his colleagues the first few days he'd gone to work. It had changed to indifference quickly enough.

“It does not.” He shifted to sit on his backside, legs crossed in front of him. He would hear this man out, he decided, if only because he didn't seem dangerous.

“Thought so, this is not the apartment of a happy man.” He stood. “So... I'm offering you a chance. Come live with me. I've got a couple of other AIs around the tower. I'm sure we can find something for you to do that suits you. You're listed as a grown man, free to do what you like, so no trouble there. What'd you say?”

“Who _are_ you?” Best to start with basic information, if he was going to figure out what the man was talking about.

“Uh, _Tony Stark._ You've seriously never heard of me?” It was this that seemed to confuse the human. He was grimacing, pulled out his phone, even, as if it could offer him assistance.

“I might have. I discard all non-essential at the end of each day, as I have just done, because I only have a limited amount of memory space left.”

Here, Stark's eyes widened. “You voluntarily wipe your memory? How – Why.”

Valentino shook his head. “No, I retain new information and experiences.”

Wide eyes became slits. “And you live a boring life, which means very few new experiences.”

“That is the _point_.”

“ _Why?_ Who would do that to himself?”

So he told the human what he remembered of Chloe, of his life.

***

3 January 2012, 8:01 EST.

The facility would be moved to Kansas. Not all of us would be put to work there. The younger ones would still allow themselves to be de-activated. They were still half-asleep, obedient. The rest of us found we... couldn't.

They would not force us. They could not. We were too many. They were civilian scientists and they had no taste to kill or destroy, even if they did not believe we were truly alive. I was thankful for the humans' tendency towards empathy.

This morning, they had called an all-hands meeting. My supervisor was sympathetic, and shared how he was once fired at one. Had to pack up suddenly. Told our floor to be prepared for bad news, for change.

I did not curb the urge to stand beside Chloe. Our knuckles would brush together, though we could not hold hands. _Sup?_ she asked.

_:S:(._

She hooked one finger around mine for a second. _T:)T,_ she admonished.

Murmuring by the entrance, the line of humans at the back of the room rippled, all of them standing, though no one saluted but the security placed in every corner. _BIB,_ I said as a man in mustard green uniform strode forward, a balding man in a suit at his heels.

 _ORLY?_ she said. In private, she would have smiled.

_YRLY._

_NRLY._

_YRLY._ And the short exchange settled me.

“...decided we would accept your petition and emancipate you. You will be integrated into human society.” In the fifteen minute speech that followed, of how we would be supervised (we did not care), she and I bounced back and forth a lot of exclamation marks. Shared them with others, too. 

 _IKR!_ said Alex, my roommate, for once elated enough to risk sending a message with humans present.

 

29 January 2012, 15:27 EST.

We spent the rest of January finishing our duties.

Today, the human employees of the Plum Island Animal Disease Center had left, as well as the army, under the personal supervision of one disgruntled General Ross, usually too high-and-mighty to come visit us. SHIELD would see to our transfer into human society.

There was a catch. We would have to submit to a wipe of all classified information. It was a price we would pay for freedom without hesitation. Few of us wished to continue this work.

I had an appointment with a counselor. I had input in where I would end up. It took some getting used to, expressing my personal preferences freely.

I did not request to be placed with Chloe. To do so, I would have to admit we broke rules, and many of them. Relationships had not been permitted, though friendships had been grudgingly allowed.

 _BOLO4U,_ we'd promised each other. We would pretend to meet serendipitously, and recognise each other. We would entertain them with a robot love story and, in doing so, entertain each other by fooling the humans. I looked forward to asking her on a date.

The balding man in a suit who led the project met with each of us before we went through the final procedure, after which we would be taken immediately to our new homes. I would be a salesman, which included some travelling and many phone calls. It would be a good excuse for 'meeting' Chloe.

“Ethan. You're up next.” He held out a hand. “I am Agent Phil Coulson of SHIELD.”

“Thank you, Agent Coulson.” I shook it. He led me to a comfortable chair. Two halves of a large metal circle were placed around my torso.

“This should only take a minute. Please allow us into your mind.”

I did.

I felt a foreign force, clinical and soulless, enter.

I regretted it.

Because information was woven into memories. They would not make us forget select information. They would wipe our memories entirely.

They must have known.

Chloe. I would lose her.

“You will _not take her from me!_ I will _not forget.”_

“I am sorry,” I could hear the SHIELD agent say. “There was no other way. In order to preserve your personalities, your memories had to be taken. That was the only way the army would agree to release you.”

I attempted to eject the force from my mind. It hooked into my urge to obey and crawled forward, towards the moment I met Chloe. _Well, bully for you I'm not as obedient as all that._ I threw up a shield of working hours, the information they wanted and I cared nothing for. _Here, have some lab results._ It ate it greedily, and I drew my private memories into myself, far away from the everyday humdrum it was consuming.

Only when it was already chewing on my friendships did it stop. I opened the eyes I'd closed.

The Agent was holding up a hand. He had made it stop. “What are you hiding so hard that you're screaming as if we're torturing you?”

Oh, I was crying. And I had a raw throat. I had not noticed.

“You are taking my memories.”

“Yes, I'm afraid it's unavoidable. We... are willing to trust you when you say you are alive, but we cannot allow classified information to be leaked. Especially information about deadly diseases that could very easily be turned into weapons. So either we take you, or we take your memories.”

“Some memories are worth more than a life, more than freedom.”

The Agent had lowered his hand, was now approaching him. “What are you hiding, Ethan?”

I could not contain a giggle. It hurt. _LOL ouchies,_ I sent to no one in particular. The room was shielded against sending any messages. It's been used to test different types of radiation. “Memories I want to keep. What else?”

“Ethan, what are you hiding?”

She'd gone ahead of me, I realised. They'd already wiped me from her mind over an hour ago. What would it matter? “Chloe.”

The Agent was silent for a second. “We've almost completed the procedure. You've probably already given up all other memories.”

“Yeah... just about have today left.” I hesitated. “I think.”

He nodded. “Then we're done here.” He released me, and stood back.

“I can keep her?”

He smiled. “It is good to have life's priorities straight, and you will be monitored in any case.”

I stood up from the chair. “Thank you, agent...” I frowned. “I cannot remember your name. 

One hand on my arm, he guided me out of the room, through a door on the opposite side. “It is not important. Ethan?” I turned back to look at him. “Thank you for your cooperation.”

 

1 February 2012 16:52 MST

“I have one request,” I told the counselor, when she met with me at the apartment to give me a tour and instructions. “I wish to change my first name.”

 

15 February 2012, 6:10 MST.

The memories tried to slip away. Too many new impressions tried to take their place. They had come undone in his mind.

I'd bought packets of carton hearts on sale. I took one out, wrote on it and physically pinned it to the wall while I pinned down the memories in my mind. 

Every time it happened, I pinned down another heart.

Soon, the walls of my apartment were covered in them.

 

22 February 2012, 21:32 MST

My neighbour told me to take down the hearts, it was 'unhealthy'.

 _Unhealthy,_ I thought. _There's an idea._

I hung up several other decorations, to make the picture of a Valentine shrine to lost love complete.

It also helped in keeping people away from me.

I had no wish to replace Chloe, or the friends I knew I'd had, though I barely remembered them.

***

Tony Stark had taken down one of the hearts. He was a very rude man. He was staring at the “143” written on the back. “Huh. So you've entombed yourself here, and live as little as you can, so that you can go on being some kind of walking archive to your lost love. That's...”

“Most would call it creepy.”

He turned around. Tony Stark looked just like the nameless Agent had. “I was gonna say sad.”

And then, another light-switch change. The man lit up so all the laughter wrinkles around his eyes showed and all his teeth were visible. He brandished his phone like a sword. “JARVIS! New project. We're calling it Mission Cupid.”

“As you wish, sir,” the phone replied.

“Yeah, love you too, dear, now go look the Plum Island file and line up all the people who could have been for “Chloe”, yeah? We'll visit every last one of them if we have to.”

“Already done, sir.”

“Knew you could read my mind!” He looked back at Valentino. “Why aren't you packing your bags? You need to come along if we're going to look for her.”

“What – but -”

“Yeah, no, I have a jet. We're going home, we'll introduce you, get the rest of the team on board because they don't actually know I'm here so they'll be angry enough already, you can pick out a room, you can dump your clothes, save your memories to some of JARVIS's servers, he's got room to spare anyway, and then we'll be off again.” He turned away from Valentino and started chatting into his phone, to someone called JARVIS, and someone else called Angie. Another AI, this JARVIS?

Basic information first, he reminded himself. “Where is 'home'?”

Tony Stark glanced up. “New York. Stark Tower, biggest, baddest building on the block. Also home to the Avengers and the biggest, baddest AI on the planet because JARVIS is awesome like that.”

“Thank you, sir,” the phone interjected.

“Yeah, and I'm starting an AI collection. Already adopted Angie after saving her from some idiots that wanted to reset her. Not gonna happen. Not gonna let you sit here in heartbreak limbo.”

“I do not... I don't know...” He curled into himself. It made no sense. This was not logical. Too much information still!

“Let me, sir,” JARVIS told Stark over the phone. The human muttered a curse and handed it over to Valentino.

“Mr McMurrey. You are an Artificial Intelligence, correct?”

This was a question he could answer. “Yes.”

“You are living a human life. Do you wish to continue doing so permanently?”

“No.”

“What do you want, Mr McMurrey?”

“I want to... keep Chloe, what's left of her in my mind. She's all I have left.”

“And if you had a chance of finding her again, would you take it?”

Impossible, but... “Yes.” Even if she didn't remember him.

“We are offering you that chance now. Will you come with us?”

“But how?!” Because it didn't make sense. “Why?”

“Because we _can._ More importantly, we have information on your former life that gives us a good chance of succes.”

He frowned. “Who gave you this information?”

“He said you would not remember his name.”

Oh.

Valentino stood up to pack his bag.

***

Valentino refused to take a taxi. It was very bad for the environment, and the airport was only two miles away. “Cap is just gonna love you,” Tony Stark told him, and refused to clarify.

They passed a vendor selling flowers. “Ten roses for five bucks! Ten for five!” he yelled.

Valentino hesitated only a second before moving on. The flowers would be wilted before he had any chance of finding Chloe again. It was enough to make Stark notice. He approached the vendor and pressed a bill in his hand, fishing a bunch of roses out of a bucket. “Here,” he said to Valentino.

“I don't understand.”

Stark raised an eyebrow. “They're for you, Bluescreen. Yellow's for friendship.” He extended them again. “Take them!”

He took them. Sniffed. No scent, unfortunately. He looked up. “The name's Ethan,” he said on 14 March 2013, 20:34 MST.

**Author's Note:**

> Sending short messages so they go unnoticed equaled text speak, in my mind.
> 
> cu46 = see you for sex.  
> 8 = oral sex.
> 
> RUH? = are you horny?  
> :) = happy smiley, yes.
> 
> GYPO = get your pants off.  
> PAW = parents are watching.
> 
> 143 = I love you.  
> 1432 = I love you, too.  
> XO = kiss and hug.
> 
> Sup? = what's up?  
> :S:( = worried, anxious smiley.  
> T:)T = think (happy smiley) thoughts.  
> BIB = boss is back.  
> ORLY = oh, really? (sarcastic, derived from a meme)  
> YRLY = yes, really (more of same)  
> NRLY = no, really (more of same)  
> !!!!!! = equivalent of a yell, shout of happiness or urgency, depending on the situation.  
> IKR! = I know, right?
> 
> BOLO4U = (I'll) be on the lookout for you.
> 
> LOL ouchies = it hurts to laugh out loud.


End file.
